


I would burn this world to warm you

by Kuro_Guardian



Series: The Son of a Hero [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hive Mind, Loss of Memory, Lovecraftian Shenanigans, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), loss of self, some body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 16:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuro_Guardian/pseuds/Kuro_Guardian
Summary: It's not always as easy as leaving - Sam left and now Scott is here. And now everything is falling apart.This is the... third story from this series. You don't have to read second one, but reading Cradle and All will probably help a bit.





	I would burn this world to warm you

_“You have to understand...”_

 

And to be honest Sam wanted to understand, wanted to explain everything away - but he could never tolerate bullshite. And part of him wants to laugh, because that’s not really true is it? He could swallow it down well enough when it aligned with his desire to be special and stand on top of the world. Could tolerate it well enough when it wasn’t his ass in the sling.

 

If he hadn’t buried his head in the sand and gone along with Steve on his crusade - Sometimes Sam thinks it all could have gone so differently. Other times he realizes that things probably would have gone a whole lot worse. And sometimes - sometimes he thinks that what sticks in his throat is that it all ended up being about Bucky.

 

Worse it wasn’t even really Bucky - just an overly optimistic memory of James “Bucky” Buchanan and not the broken thing they put on ice. And that’s not fair. But neither was neglecting to tell the whole story - Sam would have trusted Tony more if he’d known about the deal. Not least because he might have taken it.

 

So, so - fuck.

 

And it all comes to a head on a day that feels like stepped out into an oven. The sky bleached nearly white from heat. And Steve is clutching that damn phone - holding it like it’s the last thing between him and a fall he won’t survive. Thunder rumbles in the distance where storm clouds sit like the mountains of story-time and childhood adventures.

 

“You don’t understand.” “Help me understand!” And the heat is all but visible as things too big to be grasshoppers and too small to be locust leap around their feet. The grass looks like it should be green, but it yellows as though sick. “Tony... Tony let himself be played and - ” “Tony is the only one in a position to do anything. You want to fix Barnes’ brain? Then you’ll probably need B.A.R.F. but I doubt he’ll ever cough it up now!”

 

And Steve clutches the phone a little tighter as he refuses to meet Sam’s eyes. “I wrote him a letter - and Tony has a lot of problems, but he’s not petty. He’ll call and then we’ll fix all of this nonsense. It’ll be okay.” The thunder rolls closer with enough force to rattle his teeth in his head. It’s not enough to rattle the anger he feels looking at Steve staring into the distance. ‘Like a damn statue. Like he’s posing for some bullshit picture.’

 

“Don’t bullshit me Rogers - what the hell happened in Siberia?” And Steve flinches. “Never mind. Forget my number. I have some contacts and I’m going to go.” And it’s honestly very easy - all he has to do is keep his fucking mouth shut. It’s damn easy because no one wants him to speak anyway.

 

He’s _“just the sidekick”_. ‘ _The tag-along_.’ He “ _didn’t know any better_ ” or “ _he had no choice against a super-human_ ” or of course he fell for the allure of Captain America. And there’s talk of brain-washing by the ex-Hydra operative. Talk of baseline humans not mattering to Private Rogers. There is footage provided by Rhodes and Potts showing Tony fucking Stark dangling in the air while being held by the throat.

 

So in the end... In the end it feels like a cheat. Like all the bodies were swept away and there are protests, but what can anyone really do if America doesn’t want to play ball? Nothing. And Sam finds himself in a small town far enough away from the spotlights to be potentially safe. Far enough in the background that he can be safely forgotten.

 

He remembers Rhodes, Potts, and Stark walking past him like he means nothing. And eventually the cameras stop coming and the “journalists” stop looking. And he finds himself wanting to whimper, because they’ve done everything but shovel the dirt back over. So...

 

So, no. He isn’t expecting Scott. He has a new life that is a little more than slightly dim, a little more than slightly dinged, but it’s a damn sight better than it has any right to be. And he tries not to remember the complete contempt on Tony’s face when he’s explaining why he offered any help at all.

 

_“I don’t give a fuck about you, but I’ll be damned if I let...”_ And Stark looks like someone is trying to pull his heart out of his chest. A moment of awkward silence passes as he blinks rapidly and then sighs looking much older than he should. _“For all that Rogers hates when his teammates don’t tell him things... He sucks at giving his teammates the **courtesy** of the full story.”_

 

And there isn’t anything to say to that. Not really.

 

But he has that same... that dry, cotton-mouth fill as he stares at Scott like he’s never seen a white guy before. And there comes the minor thought of “manners”, but the bigger thought is that something is wrong. “What are you doing here?” And that’s rude, but Scott - Scott is suddenly three feet taller than he used to be.

 

**_Betrayal._ **

_You said we were saving lives._

_I just_

  
_wanted to_

  
_help_

  
_help_

  
_~~helpmehelpmehelpmehelpme~~_

  
_Ijustwant_

_my_

_little_

  
_girl/ ~~opeH~~_

_**YOUliedtoome!!!!!!** _

He wakes up remembering how her hair smelled.

 

He wakes up remembering sarahpeggynatashasharonmomcassiemeghopewanda.

 

He can’t remember his name, but he knows her skin, her hair, her eyes.

 

The room is a mess and there is so much blood. It might be his blood, but it’s more likely that of the bodies in the corner.

 

He’s not in his house.

 

In hour later it’s much worse than all that, because he’s not even in the right state. The right state. The color of his arm literally burns away to leave twitching red muscle. It doesn’t even hurt. But the pale, vaguely pink slurry that weeps up through the muscle fiber bringing strings of blue and red and purple that might be nerves or veins or whatever... That’s pain that scraps down to the bottom of his soul.

 

...He hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t meant to scream or to kill the officer who came to investigate. Certainly hadn’t meant to absorb part of the officer - Nathan C. Gordon, six years on the force and married to Kevin Bernstein with a child on the way via surrogacy. His new left hand is darker than his old one, but it feels naked until he - Sam, his name is Sam - takes his old ring off his old body. Nathan’s old body.

 

His name is Sam.

 

He tells himself this again as he waits for the bus with his jacket - no. Jeffery’s jacket, with the rip in the pocket from catching it on a fence year.

 

But Sam has never stolen apples from an orchard and had to outrun a couple of guard dogs. Shaking his head Valerie tries to focus on keeping a single shape. And thought. He needs to find Scott - needs to find Cassie. No. Scott. Needs to find Scott, this is Scott’s fault. His fault that he loses time like a dandelion losing it’s crown in a cloud of fluff. That’s his mind blown and dancing away to grow more.

 

Scott is the dandelion and the world needs to know.

  
But if the world knows he’ll never find Cassie.

 

Stark.

 

Sam hits his head against the door one more time. He ignores the black substance that looks like oil, but is so much thicker. It smells of low tide and salt and somehow cold. He’s never warm anymore. But he remembers - remembers _helping Sharon because Steve was being awful. Standoffish._

 

_Sometimes it seemed like Steve didn’t even want Sharon or the baby._ And - and Sam remembers the nice lady who brought him here. _Remembers the crucifix around her neck and then checks his long, slender neck for it. Smiles because Hank had given that to her so many years ago. Back when it seemed like they had a lifetime ahead of them instead of the hell cancer brought them._

 

Driving is difficult when you can’t be sure of your continued proportions. So he walks - and he watches his forearm contract and expand like it’s breathing even as his upper arm dwindles into something better suited to Wanda or Stevie. And the voice his mind takes on is rusty like it’s been left out in a decade’s worth of rain showers. _‘Stevie was the smallest guy with the biggest heart - and an even bigger chip on his shoulder.’_

 

He’s somewhere outside Atlanta when he has to admit to himself that he’s not losing his mind - he’s gaining the minds of others. It’s so much harder to remember his name now. ‘My name is **SAM**.” He writes it again with the black ichor running down his face. He must have been banging his head against something...again. It helps with the hunger.

 

-uck

  
“Fuck.”

 

There is blood at his feet, on his hands, sliding down his throat and it can’t begin to quench the desperate clawing of his stomach. The wandering flesh, his wondering flesh creeping along his bones searching for something... Something like memory and, “The blood holds the memory.” And that’s not Sam’s voice, it’s hers, - Erika Shelton - _who never got a fair shake_.

 

_Erika, who was varsity cheerleader last month, but they took that away like the older boys took her virtue in the woods. And it wasn’t fair because she was a Good girl, but she didn’t know how to say no. and Sally with her corn-silk hair and her glass blue eyes said they only wanted a kiss. ‘Don’t be a prude. Don’t be difficult.’ And uncle Jay had gotten there long before those older boys._

 

_But it’s different now because her shirts don’t fit and mama cries at the sight of her..._

 

Sam? Sam retches into the drain, but the memories remain and a Cesarean section scar carves it’s self into his torso. A car pulls up tires hissing over gravel and he needs to go. But he almost wants to stay and meet the man who says her laughter was like bells on a string. _Like the ones you hang on a tree at Christmas. But they don’t sell those anymore. It’s all plastic._

 

He beats his fist against the plastic - and Stark just looks at him like he’s nothing. _‘Scott, who?’_ But he isn’t Scott. He’s... He is... He bashes his head into the plastic and wonders at the black ichor. A hissing sound and then there is mist and he screams because he doesn’t want to sleep. _To sleep is to drown._

 

He hadn’t known who she was, but he had her laughter - like the bells you string on Christmas trees or used to. It’s all plastic now. And the newspapers around him are so much nonsense on newsprint. He’s forgotten how to read, but he thinks he remembers his name. Scott? or Sam? or Steve?

 

No. Steve was the liar. And Sam was the betrayer. So he has to be Scott and _he knows he's paranoid, but T’Challa wanted to study him. Said it was for his safety. Said everything would be taken care, but Scott needed to stay in a little cage and no. No Scott needs to get home because he -_

 

_He carefully unwraps his fingers from around Sam’s wrists and his ankles. Carefully Scott tucks away the arms - too long and too many and too thin. And he retracts his too long, too sharp teeth from Sam’s bleeding corpse. Except Sam isn’t dead (yet) and he needs to go. Becausebecauseveeca_

 

**Cassie.** _He needs to go to Cassie and Hope and Meg. He needs them all. It’s - he misses them and he needs them._

 

And Sam wakes up screaming because he can see it:

 

a break-in at Pym Industries.  
a monster at a school playground throwing small bodies like toys.  
a home invasion that leaves a police officer beaten to death and his wife missing.

  
There is a child missing.

And they’ll never find her - Scott fixed it so they’ll never take her away again.

She’ll never stop crying.

 

  
He can’t stop crying.

Stark wears a suit made of Pearl and Platinum.  
Stark wears a crown of bone and copper and sits on a throne of corpses.

Steve sits across the way and all Scott/Sam can do is bang his head against the plastic wall until all he can see is black.

He wants to understand.

 

_He brought the plane down; so why is he here?_


End file.
